Moral Arguments
by LadyDivine91
Summary: Crowley doesn't exactly take assignments anymore, but sometimes he does things for fun - like answering the call of a broken-hearted woman summoning a demon on St. Valentine's Day. But what Crowley thinks is going to be a simple hex-and-go turns into more emotionally charged than he bargained for. Aziraphale x Crowley
1. Chapter 1

"Creatures of the Underworld …"

"Yup. That's me."

"… on Earth and below …"

"Gotcha."

"… I summon thee!"

Crowley throws up his hands in frustration. Ten more minutes of this, and he's going to start pulling his hair out.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm summoned! I'm summoned! Let's get a move on, will ya? I'm late for a date!"

"Demons of vengeance! Hear my plea! Do my bidding!"

"Let's have at it then, girlie!"

"Lords of the Dark!"

"Oh, bollocks! Here we go again!"

"I, Samantha Westin of West Berkshire, call you to my aid!"

"Ugh!"

Crowley, hidden between a dresser and a closet, in a shadow created by several taper candles throwing light, slides down the bedroom wall and sits. He'd been summoned here, but not really. Only very specific spells can truly summon him. It's not a simple matter of yelling out, "Oi! Demon! Get your bum over here! I need you to do something for me!"

If that were the case, he'd never get a moment's peace.

But this was different – an amateur incantation but on a day of the year when demons get the greatest (and _easiest_) opportunity to make mischief – and Crowley appreciates _easy_; when people from all walks of life will call for a demon like they're ordering take away and invite them into their homes with little to no thought of the consequences.

_St. Valentine's Day._

Crowley doesn't do much in the way of official assignments for the big bosses anymore, but old habits die hard, and this one's too tempting to resist. He's running late for dinner with his angel, but this was going to be _fun_. He could risk being a few minutes late.

That's what he'd originally thought.

He's closing in on over half-an-hour.

Samantha leans over a book on the floor in front of her. She reads a bit, then jumps nervously. She grabs a container of salt by her knee and spills it out in a circle around her.

A protective ring –a boundary between her and any potential evil.

"Aw!" Crowley coos sarcastically to himself. "She fancies herself a white witch! How _adorable_!"

He has to give her some credit. Whatever book she bought, it's from someone who knows an inkling of their stuff. Salt is effective against evil creatures, but only minor ones, like the insects of the demon world. Still, considering no one would want their house invaded by a horde of demonic termites or zombie ants, it's nothing to sneeze at.

"Find a photograph of the offending and fix your eyes upon it."

"Okay, okay." Crowley sits up, wondering if he should miracle himself up a bag of crisps. "Finally! Things are gettin' _good_."

"Tear up the photograph," she reads, "and proclaim his sins into the dark." She takes a deep breath, then lets it out. "Okay. Here goes."

She begins to tear the picture in half, then fourths, and Crowley rubs his hands excitedly together.

"So let's see. What did this crank handle do, huh, Sammy? Stepped out with another bird, I'll wager."

Samantha carefully places the torn pieces of the photograph into a small wooden bowl, part of her arsenal of witchcraft paraphernalia, and sighs. "He left me for my twin sister."

"Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" Crowley licks his finger and marks a single, sparking tally into the air. "Well, you should take that as a compliment, love, really. He left for someone who looks exactly like you."

"He stole my car …"

"Oh, we're not done."

"… broke into my house …" She takes a long breath, shuddered by the onset of tears. "He killed my dog …"

The grin that had been spreading on Crowley's face falls into an immediate frown. "For Satan's sake! This prick should be working for _us_."

The woman stops, bites her lower lip as the tears gathering around her heart begin to fall.

"He hit me. Not just once. Not just twice. And he … he …" Her voice fails her, but she mouths the words, and Crowley rises to his knees, subconsciously gearing up for a fight. This is a new instinct for him, being protective of anyone, specially a mortal. He's known right and wrong from day one. He's felt anger over the injustices he's witnessed, even remorse over the ones he's helped cause. But, for the most part, he's been fine sitting on the sidelines, inconveniencing people when he could for the greater good.

It's a grey area – thwarting a crime. In the end, _someone_ gets hurt or killed. When you're in the business of harvesting souls, the _who_ doesn't necessarily matter.

Crowley simply finds a way to harvest a bit more selectively than other demons.

"Holy fuck!" he groans, tossing his head back and staring up at the ceiling. "Why? Why me? This was supposed to be a simple little fun hex-and-go. What am I supposed to do _now_?"

The real question, he discovers with very little wracking of his brain, is what would Aziraphale do?

"Sprinkle rose water on the pieces of the photograph and set them on fire."

A conflicted Crowley watches the young lady search for her flask of rose water. He'd seen it beside her a moment ago – a simple vessel of water with roses floating in it that she probably prepared herself. She suddenly seems to remember where she put it because she spins around quickly with an anxious look on her face, mumbling, "No, no, no! Crap!" before she finds it tipped over onto its side. "_Dammit_!" She examines the empty flask, wet rose petals plastered to the sides, the water that had been inside soaking into her rug. She shakes her head and sets the flask down. "Of course! Of _course_! Just my luck! _Now_ what am I going to do?" She gets on her hands and knees and goes searching for something to replace the water with. She finds another bottle within reach of her salt circle and grabs it. She reads the label, then gives it a sniff. She consults her book, and shrugs.

"Smells like roses. This should do."

Crowley squints from the darkness to catch a glimpse of the label. This bottle isn't rose water. It's perfume. Not expensive perfume. The kind one buys at a corner market along with their milk and eggs on the way home. Perfume of that caliber is usually teeming with alcohol.

_Flammable _alcohol.

He watches as she gives the bowl a few spritzes, a subtle floral aroma filling the air. Then she goes for broke, untwists the top, and empties the contents into the bowl. The scent of roses smacks him in the face like a freight train along with an undercurrent of sharp and chemical. She grabs a book of matches, tearing four from the inseam, and strikes them.

"Jesus Christmas! She's going to light herself on fire!" Flashbacks fill his brain of a heat seared inside his memory like a wound that refuses, even with time and treatment, to heal. Crowley leaps to his feet and materializes from the shadows, rushing at her, waving his hands to get her attention. "Stop! Stop! For Satan's sake, stop!"

Samantha's head snaps up. She drops her matchbook and scuttles backward, stopping when her hands hit the salt. With a snap of his fingers, Crowley extinguishes the flame before it has a chance to ignite the bowl.

"What the -? What the _fuck_?" Samantha screams. "Who the _fuck_ are _you_?"

"I'm a demon!" Crowley pats his chest dramatically as if she might mistake something else for the demon and him for a coat rack. "You know, the one you've been summoning?"

"I-I don't believe in demons!" she yells and for a moment, all of Crowley's worries about this woman setting herself, her house, and her neighbors ablaze dies with the absurdity of that remark.

"I … huh … _what_!? If you don't believe in _demons_, why the bloody heck are you trying to summon one then? That's literally the stupidest … you don't _dabble_ in magicks, young lady! That's even worse than knowing what you're doing!"

"It -it wasn't supposed to be _serious_! It was a coping mechanism!"

"Don't talk to me about coping mechanisms! My entire _existence_ is about coping mechanisms! Don't do that!" Crowley snaps, catching her with his magic before she can jump to her feet and dive onto her bed for her cell phone. The bed is halfway across the room. Making a break for it would have taken her out of her circle. "Don't break the ring of salt! Even terrible spells need to be ended correctly!"

"What happens if they aren't?" she asks, relaxing when he releases his hold over her.

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

"_Yes_, I want to know! I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know!"

"Cheeky little …" he mutters, fishing his phone out of his pocket, realizing how much this young lady and his angel would get along. "Let's just say if you don't want to know what it feels like to have your brains liquefied inside your skull and then drunk by demon maggots, you'll end this spell. Meanwhile, I'm gonna call in some reinforcements."

"Reinforcements?" Samantha swallows hard. "L-like … more demons?"

"Luckily for you, no. I run with a different crowd."

"How do I end the spell?"

"Jump to the bottom of the page," he says, phone to his ear. "It'll tell you-_Aziraphale_?"

This isn't the way Crowley saw this going. Back in the old days, he'd hex the guy and be done with it – make him go bald with his head hair growing out his nose, give him a festering boil on his face that would never heal, make him severely and flatulently allergic to his favorite foods. Only thing was, unbeknownst to the young lady who summoned him, _she_ would be damned, too. That wasn't even a demonic rule. That one came from the good book itself. It was the kind of two-for-one demons delighted in.

One that came with a divine loophole.

But not anymore.

For some bizarre reason, he's taking this personally.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale's voice barks over the line. "What the heaven has happened to you? You're nearly an hour late!"

"I know, angel, I know. I got caught up with work."

"You're working? _Tonight_!?"

"I'm sorry. I'll explain when I get there." Crowley glances down at Samantha, reading through the spell, sniffling as the words take her back to why she was doing what she was doing a moment before. "I'll be bringing work home with me. I need a little help."

* * *

"There, there, dear," Aziraphale says, handing Samantha a cup of tea. "Let's talk this out, hmm? Tell us everything, and then we can come up with a solution."

It took Aziraphale close to an hour over the phone to convince Samantha to get into Crowley's Bentley and accompany him to his bookshop. When he did, he made Crowley swear he'd obey the posted speed limits.

When they arrived in under fifteen minutes, Aziraphale knew he hadn't.

Remarkable seeing as they stopped along the way to pick up a friend.

"The solution is we should call the police!" Anathema says, bringing over a plate of cookies.

"I … I tried." Samantha takes the plate with a small but grateful smile. "Everything he's done, even with the evidence I have against him, and it's still a _his word against mine_ sort of situation. It's almost like the police don't want to listen. Like they think it's not worth their time."

"Sounds about right," Anathema reluctantly admits, dropping onto a nearby sofa and accepting a glass of whiskey from an angrily hissing Crowley as he paces the floor.

Aziraphale watches on with sympathetic eyes. He'd asked Crowley in private why? Why did this mean so much to him? With everything he'd done in the past, why did this one woman's plight trigger such a strong response? Crowley had confessed that he didn't know, but mumbled something about those abusing the vulnerable beginning to get under his skin.

"So, what do you suggest, angel?" Crowley asks, peeking up when he feels his husband's eyes on him. "What does it say in the rule book about dealing with a situation like this when the supposed _good guys_ sit around with their thumbs up their arses?"

"Normally, I would recommend gentle persuasion, and if that doesn't work, then a little _forceful_ persuasion," Aziraphale says. "But as I don't feel the man in question would be receptive to that, and the authorities aren't in the mood to help, maybe we should skip the usual steps and jump to the end."

"And what's the end?" Samantha looks nervously from Aziraphale to Anathema, then to Crowley staring at the man in white with a disbelief that erases the color from his face. All three have gone quiet, but they've seem to come to the same conclusion, and it stuns at least two of them.

Samantha is obviously missing something _big_.

"Well, you did summon a demon, my dear," Aziraphale says kindly, but with a grave nod to his husband. "I'd say it's about time that demon got to work."

"Are you _serious_?" Anathema yelps, but not in a way that indicates she disagrees. In fact, she looks fully on board with this plan – _whatever_ it is.

"What about the whole damnation clause thing?" Crowley asks in a lower than low whisper.

"Find a loophole, my dear. That's what you do."

Crowley grins, impressed at the ability of his innocent Aziraphale to straddle the grey line as well as he. During a discussion about guns, his angel had once said that they lend weight to a moral argument when wielded by the right people. He wonders if this falls under the same category. "Right. And what about dinner?"

Aziraphale escorts his demon to the door, kissing him softly on the lips before showing him out. "It'll keep."


	2. Chapter 2

_Bzzz-bzzz_

_Bzzz-bzzz_

…

_Bzzz-bzzz_

_Bzzz-bzzz_

…

"Holy Heaven!" Aziraphale exclaims, batting the air around his face. "The mosquitoes are out and about early this year. Odd considering it's been so cool out lately …"

"Uh … I think that's your phone." Anathema gestures to the table with her half-drunk tumbler of whiskey.

"My wha-?" Aziraphale turns to his rotary phone sitting on his desk and waits for it to make a noise, but it doesn't.

And the buzzing continues.

"Not _that_ phone." Anathema snorts. "Your cell phone."

Aziraphale turns to the table, searching amid the half-empty cups of tea and the polished clean glasses of alcohol for the new cellular phone Crowley had given him. The accursed thing wasn't so much a gift from his demon but a means to an end since Crowley isn't fond of not being able to get in touch with his angel every blessed hour of the day - hilarious conceptually since they live together.

In protest, Aziraphale rarely answers it, requiring Crowley to race down to his shop anyway whenever he needs to speak with him.

The phone is apparently on _vibrate_, and Aziraphale neither knows how it got there nor how to get it to stop. Crowley must have done it when he entered his number in because there's a rather obnoxiously smug photograph of Crowley on the screen with the words _Anthony J Crowley_ underneath.

"Oh, yes. So it is. Thank you, my dear." He picks it up and presses an icon marked _call_. "Hello?" he says, but it continues to buzz. He presses a green picture of a phone and repeats, "Hello?" but that does nothing either. After a third try and fail, Anathema, not quite drunk enough to deal with this hiccup in their plan, grabs the phone out of Aziraphale's hand, swipes the phone icon with a terse, "There," and shoves it back.

_"Aziraphale! Aziraphale!"_ he hears Crowley whisper hoarsely.

Aziraphale gives Anathema a bitter eye as she goes back to her seat on the sofa. He squares his shoulders, puts the phone to his ear, clears his throat, and says, "Crowley?"

_"Aziraphale! I found the place."_

"Excellent!"

"Put the call on speaker," Anathema says. When Aziraphale shoots her a confused look, she grabs the phone again and does it herself, laying it down on the table for all of them to hear.

_"Now what?"_ Crowley asks.

"What do you mean, _now what_?" Aziraphale says, leaning in unnecessarily to talk into the phone. "You've done this sort of thing before, I trust. Go … do whatever it is you _do_."

_"Yes, I recognize that, but there are complications."_

Three pairs of eyes meet across the table, equally bewildered. Anathema and Aziraphale look to Samantha for an explanation, but Samantha shrugs and mouths, _'I don't know.' _

"What sort of _complications_?" Aziraphale asks.

_"I don't want you mad at me, do I? Revenge work is highly desired amongst demons because it tends to get bloody. Now, I don't mind getting my hands dirty for a good cause, but if anything I'm about to do will get me banished to the sofa for the foreseeable future, I'd like to know beforehand."_

"I see. What would you _normally_ do?"

_"I could turn him inside out."_

"Ewww!" Samantha and Anathema say in unison, while Aziraphale looks like he's about to lose his lunch.

"Anything else?"

_"The usual, really. I can bury him up to his neck in sand, pour maple syrup over his head and let the ants have at him. I can turn him into a one legged rabbit and throw him to the wolves. I can give him a flesh-eating disease. I can poke out his eyes and make him eat them …"_

"Enough, enough!" Samantha says with a hand to her reeling stomach. "A-are all his options so _violent_?"

"He is a _demon_, my dear."

_"I could castrate him,"_ Crowley offers.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale snaps. "If Samantha wasn't amenable to the idea of _eye eating_, I don't think …"

"No, no, wait, Mr. Fell," she interrupts. "He may be onto something."

"Are you quite serious?" Anathema gasps.

"I …" Samantha bounces the idea around in her head, looking as certain as she looks uncertain. "I-I think so."

_"That sounds like a yes to me,"_ Crowley says in a chipper tone. _"Let's get on with it!"_

"Let's back away from the cheerful dismemberment for a moment, shall we, and have a bit of a chat. Look …" Aziraphale leads Samantha back over to the sofa and sets her down, taking a seat beside her "… take a moment and think – if you were going to make him pay for his crimes _without_ demon assistance, how would you do it?"

"Well, I wouldn't want it to be fast," she says. "I mean, I assume you can't live once you've been turned inside out, right?"

_"I can make that happen."_

"Shhh!" Aziraphale scolds the phone. "No," he says, turning back to his guest, "he can't live once he's been turned inside out."

"That's what I thought." Samantha's eyes go distant, her thoughts drifting between Aziraphale's bookshop and somewhere else. "The bigger person in me wants him to learn. To be sorry. To be _better_. But the petty person inside me wants him to suffer …"

On the other end of the line, Crowley cheers.

"… to live the way I've been living. In _fear_. With _heartbreak_." Her lower lip wobbles, her voice cracks. "But mostly the things I want, I want for _me_. I want my sister back. We haven't spoken since they ran off together. I want my sense of security back. Every time I change the locks on my house, he seems to find a way in anyway. A-and I don't have the money to move. Not that it would matter. He'd probably find me." She sniffles. "A-and I … I want my dog back."

She drops her head to her hands, weeping openly. Anathema sits beside her, puts an arm around her shoulders and hugs her. Aziraphale takes her hand and gives it a squeeze.

"I know, my darling. I know."

_"Necromancy?"_ Crowley pipes in. _"Is that what we're talking about? Or just a straight resurrection? Because I can do either."_

"No, I don't think that's the way to go," Aziraphale says, "but I do have a plan. Stand by, Crowley, my dear. I'm about to send you a textual message."

Crowley sighs. _"A text message, angel. A text message. For Satan's sake."_

"Ah, yes. A text message," Aziraphale repeats, throwing Anathema a conspiratorial wink. "Thank you."

_"Angel?"_

"Yes, Crowley?"

Crowley clears his throat. _"Could you … uh … take me off speaker?"_

"Dearest, I wouldn't know where on Earth to begin."

_"Oh … right. Well, before I go, I just wanted to say …"_ Crowley clears his throat again _"I … I love you."_

Aziraphale smiles at the phone. "I love you, too, dear. Now hold on, and be careful."

_"I will."_ The phone clicks, the call ended. Samantha peeks up and sighs.

"You guys seem so much in love," she says. "How long have you been together?"

"Oh, my dear girl …" He hands her a tissue for her watery eyes, taking one for himself after "… it feels like an _eternity_."

* * *

It had not been a good day for Richard.

Not a good day at all.

Being a sewage monkey, on the whole, was a crappy position (pun intended).

But it had its perks.

The salary for one. He couldn't sneeze at 45,000 euros per year. That's been more than sufficient to keep him comfortable and then some. What with the way the sewage works kept mucking up, contracts abounded, needing to be filled.

Ergo, the work never ended.

People gotta shit, right?

And they had to be full of it lately.

If things kept going the way they were, he'd be able to retire in roughly ten years.

And for another thing …

…

Nope, that's it. The salary is the only perk.

But today, everything that could go wrong _did_ go wrong.

There were three major clogs in London proper, and even though that meant o.t. padding his paycheck close to triple, he'd been working in a damp, congested sewer for nearly three days straight with little sleep and less of an appetite.

And boy, did he smell like it.

Today he found out the brat he'd been training is the nephew of his supervisor, poised to take his uncle's job next year! _He_ should have been offered that position hands down! He's been working with this same company for over two decades, slogging through putrescence and unimaginable filth, and for what? Now he's going to be answering to a kid half his age!

Nu-uh. No way. From day one, that kid steps onto site, Richard is going to make his life _hell_.

To top it off, just as his crew got the all clear to leave, he took a wrong turn, ended up on the M25, and got stuck in traffic for over _three hours_!

Three hours of traffic? At _midnight_!?

It seemed evil, like the whole world was out to get him.

Richard turns off the engine of his sedan and sighs. Yup. Today sucked, but at least he's home now.

He can't really see things getting worse.

He opens his driver's side door and pours his numb ass out of his seat. He can't feel most of the left side of his body, having shifted his weight over an hour into his commute when the right side said, "Fuck you!" and fell sleep. Now he's limping like a castrated dog up his driveway to his pitch black house.

And that triggers another awful realization.

Valentine's Day ended hours ago.

And he missed it.

Not just that, he outright forgot about it.

And from the fact that there's not a single light on in his house, his girlfriend must be _pissed_.

Temperamental little bitch, just like her sister. She'll nag the shit out of him about this the second he walks through the door.

Or she's dressed in head to toe sweats and a hoodie, wrapped beneath the covers like a mummy, prepared to give him the cold shoulder till the foreseeable future.

He's gotta think of something quick to save his sex life.

"_Fuuuuuuuuck_!" he bellows, kicking stiff-legged at gravel on the asphalt. "Fuck fuck fuck!" He spins around, searching for a solution that will hold her off till morning. Maybe some flowers from the neighbor's yard? They looked morbidly brown and wilted when he left for work, but in the dark, would she know the differ-?

"Pardon me, but does your name happen to be Dick Bag?"

"What?" Richard sees the man who interrupted his thoughts emerge from the shadows, strolling over in all black from his jacket to his jeans. "Whaddya mean _is my name Dick_-?" He rolls his eyes. "_Richard Sack_. My name is Richard Sack."

"Same difference."

"What's it to ya?"

"I have a message for you from an old friend. Samantha?"

_'Speak of the devil …'_ he thinks. "And who are you then? Another process server?" Richard chuckles. "You can tell that bitch she can take me to court all she wants, but nuthin's gonna happen. She can't pin shit on me."

"Ah, now, you see …" Crowley takes a few more steps forward "… you just said the wrong thing."

"Why? You fuckin' her?" Richard slams his car door, then goes about punching his palm with his fist, trying to come off intimidating. "I didn't take her for the goth type."

"Not the goth type." Crowley cracks his neck. "More like the _demon_ type."

"Yeah, right. You shittin' me or sumthin?"

"Not at all." A wind blows around them and, suddenly, Crowley stops. His nose wrinkles. He makes a noise and takes a step back. "But it smells like _you've_ been. Jesus Christmas! What the Heaven did you step in?"

"Gonna be the remains of your skinny dead ass in a second!" Richard lunges at Crowley, swinging away. Crowley steps to the side, snapping his fingers when he does. Richard flies past him and lands on the ground, struggling within the confines of his clothes, extreme alterations made to his body.

His legs have been fused together, forming one thick limb resembling a mermaid's tail covered in denim scales. Likewise his arms have melded to his sides, creating an overall fish-like effect.

And he has no mouth. Not a seam of it remains. Just a patch of smooth skin where lips should be.

He squiggles and writhes, building up momentum until he starts rolling down the driveway. Crowley follows him leisurely, knowing where he's headed. The wriggling mass of human flesh called Richard rolls and rolls until he hits the tire of his sedan and stops, wedged in underneath with his head sticking out, his face staring up. He moans and groans with eyes squeezed shut, begging with muffled words for God to help him.

Crowley waits to see if She will. When She does nothing, he takes that as the go ahead.

He taps Richard on the forehead with the toe of his snakeskin shoe to get his attention. Richard opens eyes bulging with fear. Crowley can feel his fear, taste it like a fine wine slipping down his throat. A rare vintage.

Like an angel's kiss.

And it's delicious.

For a moment, he has to remind himself that in this situation, he's one of the good guys … so-called.

"You have to admit, you had this coming. Now …" He crouches low so the man can hear him clearly "… I've got some good news and some bad news – take it as you will. I've been on the phone with my people all night, trynna figure out what would be the best possible punishment for a slimy piece of work like you. I wanted to go with an old favorite – turn you inside out and let the buzzards pick you apart … _alive_ …"

That shuts Richard right up.

"… but my lot, well, they're a might more compassionate than me. So I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. And you're gonna go along with it, because the second you deviate from the plan, I won't care what my side has to say - I'll snap my fingers and turn you into a human meat suit. Understand?"

"Mmm!" Richard mutters, nodding emphatically, scream-murmuring to the tune of, "I understand! I understand!" if it were being yelled behind a thick wall of flesh.

Which it is.

"Good. Nice to see you being reasonable for a change." Crowley raises his hand and Richard's eye go wide. He starts mumbling, something that sounds vaguely like, "No! No! You promised!" but Crowley has stopped paying attention. This is where the fun begins. "Let's go, Dicky! Time to do some penance!"

* * *

"So, you framed him for _how_ many crimes?"

"About eighteen." Crowley accepts a glass of wine from Aziraphale as his angel sits beside him on the sofa, cuddling in closer than usual. "All very old, and very, very cold, but within a reasonable enough timeframe to make them plausible."

"But … but what about the _real_ criminals?" Samantha asks, worried that, in solving her one problem, she's unknowingly created problems for eighteen other people. "Will they ever be held accountable?"

"There's no need," Crowley says after a swig. "The crimes in question never happened."

"Let's just call them a work of forensic fiction," Aziraphale offers, beaming at his clever demon.

"Mmm …" Crowley interrupts his next sip to say "… except for one. He's been charged in connection to the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony. I threw that in there for fun. If anyone ever tries to double check it, it'll disappear."

"So all's well that ends well," Anathema says.

"I guess," Samantha agrees halfheartedly, gazing sadly into her cup.

Crowley looks at his husband, his angel watching the young lady, their triumph of the night bittersweet, all things considered.

"Look," Crowley says, "you were right. There was no reasoning with him. He wouldn't hear it even if I tried. I could read his thoughts. They were very clear on the subject of you. He deserves what he got. Every damned inch of it."

"I agree," Samantha says. "I just wish things were different."

"They will be," Aziraphale promises. "Tonight was simply the first step."

"Yeah, have hope and all that." Crowley downs the remains of his wine and snakes an arm around Aziraphale's shoulders. "And before you know it, things will turn around, just like that."

Crowley snaps his fingers.

Aziraphale smiles.

Outside the bookshop, someone knocks on the door.

"Oh! Who in the Devil could that be this late at night?"

"'dunno," Crowley says, picking up his miraculously filled glass of wine. "Someone should go check. I would but …" He raises his glass and hugs his husband.

"Would you be a dear and go answer that, Samantha?"

"Um …" Samantha eyes Aziraphale and Crowley suspiciously "… okay?" She gets up from her seat and slowly walks through the stacks to the front door. Before she gets there, the person outside knocks again, making her jump nearly a mile high.

But this time, the phantom visitor speaks.

"H-hello? Is … is anybody in there?"

Samantha's brow furrows, her fear dissolving, replaced by confusion "Libby?" she says, opening the locks as quickly as she can.

"I - I'm a little bit lost, I'm afraid," the voice continues. "I don't know where I am. I saw the lights on and I …"

Samantha unlocks the door and holds it open wide. A woman darkens the doorway, dressed in blue jeans and a plum hoodie, a brown leather bag slung over her shoulder, bulging as if it may contain most of what she owns.

A woman who looks remarkably like her.

"Sammy?" the woman whispers, peering at the figure in front of her like it may be a ghost, might disappear with her breath if she speaks too loudly. But as she realizes what she's seeing is real, she throws her hands to her mouth and cries. "Sammy!"

"Libby! Oh my God! Libby!" Samantha grabs Libby by the elbow and pulls her inside. She throws her arms around her sister, hugging her with all her might as she cries into the shoulder of her sweater. "H-how did you know I would be here?"

"I-I didn't!" Libby confesses. "I was on the bus to London and the driver let me off outside. He said … he said he didn't know why he even came here, but he couldn't take me any further."

"What were you doing going to London at this hour?"

"I … I couldn't tell you. I don't know, but at the time, it seemed really important."

"What do you think, angel?" Crowley asks, relaxing into the cushions in his favorite way possible – with a glass of wine in one hand and his angel under his arm, holding him tight. "Did I do good?"

"Fabulously," Aziraphale says, glowing in the low light. "I don't think I could have done better myself."

"Uh … and the dog?" Anathema asks, speaking in hushed tones between the two. "You didn't forget the dog, did you?"

"Oh, a dog will come," Crowley says like a dark promise, grinning wickedly.

Aziraphale gasps. "Tell me you didn't order up a Hellhound?"

Crowley snickers. "You say that like it's a _bad_ thing."

"Crowley!"

"Like you said, she _did_ summon a demon. I've been all sorts of noble tonight. I get to do _one_ demonic thing, don't I?"

"_Anthony_!"

Crowley goes pale. In all their time together, Aziraphale has never voluntarily called Crowley _Anthony_. If he's doing it now, he must mean business.

Crowley has no intention of finding out what that business entails.

"All right, all right," he accedes, snapping his fingers twice. "Labrador it is."


End file.
